I don’t get out much, so it was news to me that the world might end in 2012. Apparently, a recently deciphered calendar of the ancient Maya (who ran a kind of gears-within-gears cosmology) indicates that an era of 5,000-plus years winds up in December, which could be a good thing … or not.

Our Maya guide, standing at the foot of the great pyramid at Chichén Itza as masses of tourists surged in all directions, shrugged the whole thing off. “This is just another cycle, as much a beginning as an ending,” he said. “We Maya have always been here. We always will be.”

Regardless of what you choose to believe, apocalypse or rebirth (or, most likely, nada) this “Mayan Year” is a good time to turn your attention to one of Mexico’s most unusual cuisines. The Yucatán is one of the most beautiful, and safest regions in the country. And the Maya themselves, far from disappearing, are everywhere — their culture and cuisine as evident today as it was a thousand years ago, from pyramids to pib ovens.

The Yucatán Peninsula includes the states of Yucatán and Quintana Roo, bordered by Belize and Guatemala to the south, the waters of the Gulf of Mexico to the north and west and the spectacular turquoise-blue Caribbean, with its white-sand beaches, on the east. For most of its history, the region had more direct contact by sea with Europe and Central America than with Mexico City, which is a long and difficult journey to the north. Its strongly insular cultures, both European and Mayan, were influenced far more by the Parisian haut monde, the pan-Mayan city-states of Central America and the freewheeling Caribbean with its pirates and traders. The Yucatán feels, in many ways, like a different country. Even today, tongue-in-cheek, some yucatecos refer to the rest of Mexico as “El Vecino” — The Neighbor.

Yucatán’s isolation has led to a cuisine as unique as its history. A trip to the markets shows just how different this food is, though different doesn’t really do it justice. The chili of choice is the green habanero, which is not quite as hot as the ripe orange chili. The typical chilies of Mexico — jalapeño, serrano, poblano and dried chilies — are nowhere to be seen. Instead, dozens of vendors offer tubs filled with finely ground pumpkin seed for making traditional papadzules (corn tortillas filled with hard-boiled egg, smothered in pale green pepitas salsa) and mounds of ground red annatto seed. Instead of molé pastes, here one sees the famous recados: red, made with native achiote seed, garlic and spices; green pipian, and of course pitch-black recado negro, made with blackened and pounded dry chilies. It is a vivid, alien and unforgettable taste — and appearance.

Jars of fragrant condimento (mixtures of dry spices used to season grilled meats and sauces) are arrayed next to bags of achiote, native allspice, cumin, peppercorns and bags of dried Yucatecan oregano, a large-leafed, black herb that flavors much of the everyday cooking. Shoppers fill their bags with bunches of chaya leaf (which is like a rubbery spinach,) crunchy, fresh black beans and lima beans (ibes), sour oranges and highly perfumed lima for sopa de lima. These unique ingredients create an exotic taste profile unlike anything else in Mexico — with sometimes startling results.

The hairless black-skinned criollo pig or “puerco pelon” (bald pig) is a small, feisty native, much prized for carne pibil, which is probably the best-known Yucatecan food. The meat is rubbed with brick-red achiote (recado rojo), wrapped in banana leaf and roasted in a pib (pit oven) until falling-apart tender and succulent. Turkey (pavo or guajolote) is wood-grilled, simmered in a sticky, pitch-black relleno negro sauce, and shredded onto thick corn tortillas called salbutes or served on crusty French bread with hard-boiled eggs and a thin black sauce. Every antojito stand serves an oddity called queso relleno — a hollowed-out Edam cheese stuffed with ground meat and served with chiltomate (tomato sauce) and a gray-green “gravy” made with epazote and corn masa. Everything about this is wrong, but somehow it works.

Restaurants and street stands everywhere serve a canon of traditional foods along with relleno negro, carne pibil and queso relleno. Along with salbutes, silky-textured white corn masa is used to make fried empanadas (filled with smoked shark, Edam cheese or shrimp,) and chilindrinas (achiote-tinted fresh masa rolled around a ground meat filling and fried.) This masa makes exceptional tortillas, cooked over a wood fire and served warm from the traditional hollow gourd called a lek, or stuffed with black beans to make panuchos, or opened, filled with a whole egg and carefully cooked again to make huevos encamisados.

Tamales are steamed in banana leaves, often in the form of an enormous round cake tinted red with achiote and stuffed with a thin layer of chaya or meat. Savory pok chuc is thin strips of wood-grilled pork, served with a fiery red onion and habanero relish that carries the tang of sour orange; it is delicious, as are chicken escabeche (in a cumin-scented broth) and chicken pibil cooked with onions and nopales. Sopa de lima is a simple chicken broth with crisp-fried tortilla strips and flavored with lima — a bumpy-textured citrus fruit believed to be a cross between a citron and a lime.

With this much coastline, you would expect seafood to be exceptional, and it is — caught daily in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Coastal restaurants specialize in whole fried fish served with lime-soaked habanero salsa, as well as ceviches of fresh shrimp, conch and fish, tostadas of crab or octopus and shrimp cocktels crunchy with chopped cabbage, onion and habanero. Smoke-dried shark is flaked and cooked entomatada with tomato, onion and garlic and turned into fried empanadas or another regional specialty, pan de cazon, layered with tortillas, fresh black beans and tomato sauce.

The dulcerias and panaderias of the Yucatán are exceptionally good. Bread and pastries, cookies, ice creams and meringues have a distinct Parisian flair. It’s a guilty pleasure, but if the world is ending, you certainly won’t want to skip dessert.

Deborah Schneider is a longtime San Diego chef and author of five cookbooks, including the forthcoming “Mexican Slow Cooker” (August 2012, TenSpeed Press,) “Amor y Tacos” and the James Beard-nominated “Cooking with the Seasons at Rancho La Puerta.” She is currently chef/owner of SOL Mexican Cocina, located in Newport Beach and Scottsdale, Ariz.

Cebolla Curtida (Red Onions with Habanero and Sour Orange)

1 small red onion, peeled and thinly sliced (about ¾ cup)

½ small habanero chili

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 tablespoon fresh orange or lime juice

Toast the cumin seed in a small skillet; cool and grind. Place all remaining ingredients except pork and banana leaf in the bowl of a food processor and process until very smooth. Coat the pork evenly with this achiote recado (the processed spice mixture).

Line the bottom of the slow-cooker insert with one piece of banana leaf. Top with the pork and remaining recado. Add the water, and lay the second banana leaf over the pork. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours. (Note: If you do not have a slow cooker, line a baking dish with one piece of banana leaf, add the pork in one layer and top with the second piece. Add ¼ cup of water, cover tightly with foil wrap and bake at 325 degrees for 2½ hours, or until tender.)

While the pork is cooking, combine the ingredients for the cebolla curtida in a small bowl and allow to stand at room temperature for 1 hour.

Serve the pibil on fresh baguette or telera bread with the cebolla curtida, or as an entree with black beans, rice and tortillas.

Notes: Boneless chicken may be used instead of the pork shoulder.

Fresh banana (or plantain) leaves can be found at Latin and Mexican groceries. They should be washed and dried before use. Frozen banana leaves may be found in most well-stocked Asian markets, such as Ranch 99.

Grilled Pollo Achiote with Xni-Pec

Serves 4

One 4-pound chicken

2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 teaspoons cumin seed

½ teaspoon black peppercorns

1 whole clove

½-inch piece cinnamon bark

2 teaspoons whole dried oregano (Yucatecan or Mexican)

2 cloves garlic, minced to a paste

1 tablespoon achiote paste

1 tablespoon white vinegar

2 teaspoons mayonnaise

3 tablespoons fresh orange juice

Prepare a charcoal or wood fire in the grill, or preheat a gas grill on high.

With a sharp knife or pair of poultry shears, cut the backbone out of the chicken and flatten it, cracking the breastbone and popping the leg and wing joints (this is called spatchcocking.) Pat the chicken dry with paper towels. Sprinkle it inside and out with the salt, cover and refrigerate until needed.

Toast the cumin seed, peppercorns, clove and cinnamon in a small frying pan over medium heat until fragrant. Cool completely and grind in a spice grinder with the oregano. Place the remaining ingredients in a small bowl or mini food processor, and combine thoroughly with the dry spices to make a paste. Smear evenly over both sides of the chicken.

When the fire bed is glowing red with white ash, place the chicken skin-side down, and cook without moving for 5-7 minutes. Rake the coals to one side. Turn the chicken breast side up and set to one side of the coals. Cover the grill and cook for about 40 minutes total, turning several times, until a thermometer placed in the thickest part of the thighs reads 160 degrees.

Salsa Xni-Pec

½ small red onion, diced

2 small Roma tomatoes, diced

½ teaspoon seeded and minced habanero chili

1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed lime juice

1 tablespoon fresh-squeezed orange juice

1 teaspoon white vinegar

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl. The salsa tastes better after 30 minutes.